[rue]

Up here in the dark north, bright-light sunrise-simulating alarms are becoming commonplace[1]. Mine increases in intensity over 30 minutes and uses a bird tweet as the sound alarm (I have it set to 14/20 final intensity, brighter means a headache). This works quite well.

[1] And seem available in the US: http://www.usa.philips.com/c/light-therapy/hf3480_60/prd/

[Supermighty]

All of the simulated sunrise alarms I found before I cobbled my own together were out of my price range and limited to one bulb. I like my solution because it uses long strings of colored lights which politely brighten the room.